12 Great Intranet Navigation Examples

In this article we will provide twelve navigation examples to show how modern intranet products can help you surpass this type of challenge and how various types of navigation can be used to establish an intuitive and user-friendly intranet experience.. 

According to the yearly buyer's guide 'Intranet & Employee Experience Platforms' (released in January this year), Omnia comes with an excellent user experience thanks to strong personalization, customizable search experience, flexible navigation, branding options, performance, and more. If you wish to compare the 20 leading intranet products and see further hands-on examples, download your free copy of the report using this link.

To learn more about how to ensure a great user experience, please join our webinar A Best Practice for Intranet Search and Navigation or download the document Mastering Intranet Search – the Comprehensive guide to a Great Search Experience.

Before we jump into the examples, it is worth pointing out that navigation challenges can’t be discussed and solved without an understanding of user needs and patterns, content types and attributes, labeling, devices, and similar aspects. Therefore, we won’t cover how to prepare navigation solutions in this article but instead focus on the examples.

Let’s now look at the twelve chosen screenshots – all based on Omnia and Microsoft 365 – starting with one of the most common navigation components. 

Mega menus are great for providing an overview of content within a section of the intranet, allowing end-users to quickly find and access content. The mega menu can hold landing pages, web pages, documents, tools, visuals, or other resources and links can be targeted or personalized to specific groups or users. 

In the first example below, we see a basic navigation layout with content in two levels. Here we have also added an introduction to this section on the left, including an image. In this way, it is possible to provide a short summary and set expectations on what type of content that can be discovered here. 

Image 1: Traditional Mega Menu

The second example below is also a dynamic mega menu showing a structure of pages in two levels. But in this case we are highlighing the first level in the menu with image, headline, and short description. In the four cards respectively, we also present the sub pages within the section - providing the same overview as above, but here also with a more branded look and feel. 

Image 2: Mega Menu with card view per section

As the two examples above show, mega menus can be designed regarding layout, headings, background, and more to support the overall ‘look and feel’ that many organizations want their intranet to mediate.

In the next example, the mega menu provide navigation to news articles. Here the navigation is divided into six tabs, each showing a selection of news articles and access to news archives.

Image 3: Mega Menu with tab navigation

Landing pages can be a helpful supplement to the mega menu, providing information on and navigation within a sub-section of the intranet. Our experience is that landing pages not only should provide innovative navigation solutions but also be used to implement a corporate profile. An example is this landing page showing all offices within a business as in the example below. 

Image 4: Landing Page - Locations

Another example is the landing page with content presented on the page and with tabs added to enhance navigation further. The tabs will add another dimension when it comes to navigation and this example can be described as a three-in-one landing page. 

Image 5: Landing Page with tab navigation

In the above example, end-users can navigate to courses within four areas and sign up for any course that matches their needs and interests. But also check the course calendar in the second tab and a list of trending courses in the third one. 

On web pages within a section, you need to provide current page navigation which in most cases is provided to the left on the page. In the example below, we are navigating the Employee Handbook where the page Approval of time reports is on the third level, with Workplace Professionalism and Time Management being on levels 1 and 2.  

Image 6: Current navigation and bread crumb

The Breadcrumb, just above the page content, is also a vital part of page navigations, showing the end-user a trail of pages in the structure.

But the top node ‘How we work’ is not included in the breadcrumb, which shows another important learning on navigation – that there can be a difference between how you organize where information is created and managed and how the navigation structure is presented. This can be used to achieve a setup that is efficient for content owners and authors and navigation that is optimized for findability.

Directories can be a good solution when building navigation for objects where there are no real hierarchies. The directory would then typically list the objects in an order of your choice and provide search and filtering features to make it easy for end-users to find what they are looking for. Common examples of when directory navigation is a suitable choice are for a news article archive, a directory of official processes, or as in the image below, a project portfolio.

Image 7: Project Directory

In the example, end-users can find all internal projects running within the organization and they can search and use filters for finding projects of a certain type. 

Another example where this type of navigation can be used is presented below, where controlled documents are rolled up and presented based on properties as document type, organization, location, and similar.

Image 8: Controlled Documents Directory

Providing visual navigation can be a good solution for presenting information when the structure has a meaning and is part of the ‘message’. Typically, we see that this option is being used when visualizing and publishing content related to organization charts and/or business processes. In the first example, end-user can navigate the organization to find information on departments, business areas, subsidiaries, or similar. The charts are fully dynamic and can be easily updated when the organization changes. 

Image 9: Navigation in Organization Chart

Of course, this type of navigation is also applicable when you want to use business processes as navigation to content on a recommended way of working. End-users can navigate in between processes, sub-processes, phases, and more to find instructions, task lists, links to tools, descriptions of best practices, and more. 

Image 10: Navigation in Business Processes

A modern intranet will also support several types of personalized navigation, where the preferences of end-users will decide the navigation. This can be done by asking employees to follow pages, documents, or teams, subscribing to areas of interest, and when information is targeted to the end-user based on properties. The below example shows personalized navigation to Followed Teamwork, a panel available across the solution and accessed from an icon in the top banner.

Image 11: Personalized Navigation - My Followed Teamwork

In the last example in this article, the end-user will find personalized navigation based on previous usage patterns, as My Recent Apps or My Recent Teamwork. We think having a zone on the start page dedicated to personalized navigation to frequently used content is a great idea. 

Image 12: Personalized Navigation - My Recent Apps / Teamwork

Having those navigation options on the start page will enhance the feeling of quick navigation, being able to access recent content in only one click. 

For anyone who wants to learn more about how to improve the user experience of intranets, we recommend downloading the report ‘Intranet and Employee Experience Platforms’ to take part in reviews of the best products in the market.

To learn more about intranet navigation, we also recommend attending the webinar ‘A best practice for intranet search and navigation’ which will give further insights into improving findability and user experience on your intranet. In the webinar, we will use Omnia and Microsoft 365 for all solution examples, but the content is highly relevant also if you are using other intranet products and platforms. Please also check out the document Mastering Intranet Search – the Comprehensive guide to a Great Search Experience.

Please get in touch if you wish to get a demo of how Omnia can help to improve the search and end-user experience of your intranet.